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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The John Buckley Collection of Modern & Contemporary Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  13 May 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  1
• Lot Description:
  Charles Blackman
  (born 1928)
  Razzle Dazzle by Moonlight circa 1953
  oil and enamel on composition board
  63.5 x 75.5 cm
  signed 'BLACKMAN' lower right; bears Tolarno Galleries and Lauraine Diggins Fine Art labels verso
• Provenance:
  Charles Blackman: The Schoolgirl Years 1951-1953, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 10 June - 2 July 1988, cat no.37
• Exhibited:
  Charles Blackman: The Schoolgirl Years 1951-1953, Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne, 10 June - 2 July 1988; Charles Blackman: A Solitary Existence, Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Victoria, 1 June - 4 July 1993; Nocturne: Images of Night and Darkness from Colonial to Contemporary, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, 23 April - 16 June 2002; Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria, 5 July - 1 September 2002
• References:
  J. Buckley, Nocturne: Images of Night and Darkness from Colonial to Contemporary, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 2002, pp.17 & 26 (illustrated p.16); T. Shapcott, The Art of Charles Blackman, Andre Deutsch, London, 1989, p.248, (plate 21)
• Notes:
  Charles Blackman is one of Australia's most accomplished and well-regarded post-war figurative artists. He co-founded the Melbourne Contemporary Art Society in 1953 and was one of seven Antipodeans responsible for The Antipodean Manifesto, which rebuked the predominance of abstract art. He is perhaps most famous for his iconic Schoolgirl and later Alice in Wonderland series. Razzle Dazzle by Moonlight was included in - and purchased from - the 1988 exhibition of Blackman's Schoolgirl series at Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne. While this painting is not part of the Schoolgirl leitmotif per se, it shares the same isolated, melancholic mood and displays Blackman's characteristic flair for composition and virtuosity of colour and tone. The shadowy playground scene recalls Blackman's almost-autobiographical observations on the loneliness, torment and unreality of urban life. John Buckley included Razzle Dazzle by Moonlight in the Nocturne: Images of Night and Darkness from Colonial to Contemporary exhibition he curated at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery in 2002. Buckley described the painting thus, "...Blackman paints two sharply silhouetted figures coupling in a threadbare park and a third, standing apart, in an attitude of lament. It's about furtive sex masked by that same night which doubles as a metaphor for rejection and despair."1 Blackman's work was represented in the pivotal Whitechapel Exhibition in London in 1961, Tate Gallery exhibitions of Australian Art from 1962-63 and a major national touring retrospective, Schoolgirls and Angels, at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1993. Blackman was awarded an OBE for his services to art in 1997 and his work is included in all Australian state galleries, in addition to many regional, corporate and private collections. Dr Shireen Huda 1 J. Buckley, Nocturne: Images of Night and Darkness from Colonial to Contemporary, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 2002, p.17
• Estimate:
  A$40,000 - 60,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.